On May 9th students at several UC campuses, joined by community members, will initiate a hunger strike. They will demand that the UC Regents sever ties with the Los Alamos and Livermore nuclear weapons labs. This blog will chronicle their campaign.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Thanks to Sam Marks at UCSB for pointing out this fascinating, must-see video is now on YouTube – a Los Alamos National Laboratory explaining “Why Nuclear Weapons Are Important.”

1 comment:

Anonymous
said...

A Reply To LANL Associate Director:

Stockpiling Nuclear Weapons are as important for promoting peace as HIV, syphilis and gonorrhea viruses are for maintaining health.

Watched the video and listened to the LANL Associated Director. These people are unreal. Are they actually allowed to have families? What do they say to their children about their jobs, for example, in between cooking their nuclear “Ws” and “Bs” and lecturing their morality [sic] to the less initiated “scientists?”

LANL Associated Director said,

“You get people’s attention when you threaten the existence of their nation!” Yessss... how else could you define civilization?

“Sometimes we forget how important the work that we do is…” You make bombs to kill people and destroy ecosystems wholesale. How could anyone forget how important the work that you do is?

“We have a critical role in history...”No doubt a divine one at that.

“We try real hard to be the good guys!” We try to help other countries. We are a very generous country!”Tell that to a million plus dead Iraqis.

He went on: “We defend freedom on this planet!”

No Sir, you are NOT telling the truth! In fact you are lying through your teeth.

A. [http://www.antiwar.com/engelhardt/?articleid=10439]Chalmers Johnson says, “I then began doing research on the network of 737 American military bases we maintained around the world (according to the Pentagon's own 2005 official inventory). Not including the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, we now station over half a million US troops, spies, contractors, dependents, and others on military bases located in more than 130 countries, many of them presided over by dictatorial regimes that have given their citizens no say in the decision to let us in.

“As but one striking example of imperial basing policy: For the past sixty-one years, the US military has garrisoned the small Japanese island of Okinawa with 37 bases. Smaller than Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands, Okinawa is home to 1.3 million people who live cheek-by-jowl with 17,000 Marines of the 3rd Marine Division and the largest US installation in East Asia – Kadena Air Force Base. There have been many Okinawan protests against the rapes, crimes, accidents, and pollution caused by this sort of concentration of American troops and weaponry, but so far the US military – in collusion with the Japanese government – has ignored them.

“Whether Americans intended it or not, we are now seen around the world as approving the torture of captives at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, at Bagram Air Base in Kabul, at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and at a global network of secret CIA prisons, as well as having endorsed Bush's claim that, as commander-in-chief in ‘wartime,’ he is beyond all constraints of the Constitution or international law.”

C. [www.canongate.net/Lists/WarPoliticsAndWorldAffairs/18SecretArmiesOfTheCIA][Incomplete] List of 18 Secret Armies Of The CIA [suppressing freedom throughout the world]1. UKRAINIAN PARTISANS “From 1945 to 1952, the CIA trained and aerially supplied Ukrainian partisan units …”2. CHINESE BRIGADE IN BURMA “During the early 1950s, the CIA used these soldiers to create a 12,000-man brigade …”3. GUATEMALAN REBEL ARMY “After Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz legalised that country's Communist party and expropriated 400,000 acres of United Fruit banana plantations, the CIA decided to overthrow his government.” 4. SUMATRAN REBELS “In an attempt to overthrow Indonesian president Sukarno in 1958, the CIA sent paramilitary experts and radio operators to the island of Sumartra to organize a revolt. With CIA air support, the rebel army attacked but was quickly defeated. The American government denied involvement even after a CIA B-26 was shot down and its CIA pilot, Allen Pope, was captured.” 5. KHAMBA HORSEMEN “After the 1950 Chinese invasion of Tibet, the CIA began recruiting Khamba horsemen - fierce warriors who supported Tibet's religious leader, the Dalai Lama - as they escaped into India in 1959. These Khambas were trained in modern warfare at Camp Hale, high in the Rocky Mountains near Leadville, Colorado. Transported back to Tibet by the CIA-operated Air America, the Khambas organized an army numbering at its peak some 14,000. By the mid-1960s the Khambas had been abandoned by the CIA but they fought on alone into 1970.”6. BAY OF PIGS INVASION FORCE “In 1960, CIA operatives recruited 1,500 Cuban refugees living in Miami and staged a surprise attack on Fidel Castro's Cuba. Trained at a base in Guatemala, this small army - complete with an air force consisting of B-26 bombers - landed at the Bay of Pigs on April 17, 1961. The ill-conceived, poorly planned operation ended in disaster, since all but 150 men of the force were either killed or captured within three days.” 7. L'ARMÉE CLANDESTINE “In 1962, CIA agents recruited Meo tribesmen living in the mountains of Laos to fight as guerrillas against Communist Pathet Lao forces. Called l'Armée Clandestine, this unit - paid, trained and supplied by the CIA - grew into a 30,000-man force. By 1975, the Meos - who had numbered a quarter million in 1962 - had been reduced to 10,000 refugees fleeing into Thailand.” 8. NUNG MERCENARIES “A Chinese hill people living in Vietnam, the Nungs were hired and organised by the CIA as a mercenary force, during the Vietnam War. Fearsome and brutal fighters, the Nungs were employed throughout Vietnam and along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The Numgs proved costly since they refused to fight unless constantly supplied with beer and prostitutes.”9. PERUVIAN REGIMENT “Unable to quell guerrilla forces in its eastern Amazonian provinces, Peru called on the US for help in the mid-1960s. The CIA responded by establishing a fortified camp in the area and hiring local Peruvians who were trained by Green Beret personnel on loan from the US Army.” 10. CONGO MERCENARY FORCE “In 1964 during the Congolese Civil War, the CIA established an army in the Congo to back pro-Western leaders Cyril Adoula and Joseph Mobutu. The CIA imported European mercenaries and Cuban pilots - exiles from Cuba - to pilot the CIA air force, composed of transports and B-26 bombers.” 11. THE CAMBODIAN COUP “For over 15 years, the CIA had tried various unsuccessful means of deposing Cambodia's left-leaning Prince Norodom Sihanouk, including assassination attempts. However, in March, 1970, a CIA-backed coup finally did the job. Funded by US tax dollars, armed with US weapons, and trained by American Green Berets, anti-Sihanouk forces called Kampuchea Khmer Krom (KKK) overran the capital of Phnom Penh and took control of the government. With the blessing of the CIA and the Nixon administration, control of Cambodia was placed in the hands of Lon Nol, who would later distinguish himself by dispatching soldiers to butcher tens of thousands of civilians.” 12. KURD REBELS “During the early 1970s the CIA moved into eastern Iraq to organize and supply the Kurds of that area, who were rebelling against the pro-Soviet Iraqi government. The real purpose behind this action was to help the shah of Iran settle a border dispute with Iraq favourably. After an Iranian-Iraq settlement was reached, the CIA withdrew its support from the Kurds, who were then crushed by the Iraqi Army.” 13. ANGOLA MERCENARY FORCE “In 1975, after years of bloody fighting and civil unrest in Angola, Portugal resolved to relinquish its hold on the last of its African colonies. … CIA decided to intervene covertly.”14. AFGHAN MUJAHEEDIN “Covert support for the groups fighting against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan began under President Jimmy Carter in 1979, and was stepped up during the administration of Ronald Reagan.” 15. SALVADORAN DEATH SQUADS “As far back as 1964, the CIA helped form ORDEN and ANSESAL, two paramilitary intelligence networks that developed into the Salvadoran death squads. The CIA trained ORDEN leaders in the use of automatic weapons and surveillance techniques, and placed several leaders on the CIA payroll. The CIA also provided detailed intelligence on Salvadoran individuals later murdered by the death squads. During the civil war in El Salvador from 1980 to 1992, the death squads were responsible for 40,000 killings. Even after a public outcry forced President Reagan to denounce the death squads in 1984, CIA support continued.” 16. NICARAGUAN CONTRAS “On November 23, 1981, President Ronald Reagan signed a top secret National Security Directive authorising the CIA to spend $19 million to recruit and support the Contras, opponents of Nicaragua's Sandinista government. In supporting the Contras, the CIA carried out several acts of sabotage without the Congressional intelligence committees giving consent - or even being informed beforehand. In response, Congress passed the Boland Amendment, prohibiting the CIA from providing aid to the Contras. Attempts to find alternate sources of funds led to the Iran-Contra scandal. It may also have led the CIA and the Contras to become actively involved in drug smuggling. In 1988, the Senate Subcommittee on Narcotics, Terrorism, and International Operations concluded that individuals in the Contra movement engaged in drug trafficking; that known drug traffickers provided assistance to the Contras; and that 'there are some serious questions as to whether or not US officials involved in Central America failed to address the drug issue for fear of jeopardizing the war effort against Nicaragua'.”17. HAITIAN COUPS In 1988, the CIA attempted to intervene in Haiti's elections with a 'covert action program' to undermine the campaign of the eventual winner, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Three years later, Aristide was overthrown in a bloody coup that killed more than 4,000 civilians. Many of the leaders of the coup had been on the CIA payroll since the mid-1980s.”18. VENEZUELAN COUP ATTEMPT On April 11, 2002, Venezuelan military leaders attempted to overthrow the country's democratically-elected left-wing president, Hugo Chavez. […] According to intelligence analyst Wayne Madsen, the CIA had actively organised the coup: 'The CIA provided Special Operations Group personnel, headed by a lieutenant colonel on loan from the US Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to help organise the coup against Chavez.”